


Happy Birthday, Rumple

by DarcyFarrow



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Captain Floor - Freeform, Rumbelle is Hope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 19:51:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6871102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarcyFarrow/pseuds/DarcyFarrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle introduces Rumple to Captain Floor fiction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy Birthday, Rumple

"And one final gift." She clamps her hand over her mouth as she slides the flat, silver-papered box across the dining table. He knows that clamp. He knows that twinkle in her eyes and that heightened color in her cheeks and —yes, there it comes, a giggle, escaping like air from one of the gold balloons with which she's festooned the entire first floor of their house. Another giggle as he pulls the gift forward. There's a clank as the box bumps against the cake plate. As he rips the paper from the box, she falls back in her chair, her head tilted to the ceiling, her feet kicking and her entire frame shaking with no-longer-controllable laughter.

"This isn't one of those prank presents, is it?" He raises a suspicious eyebrow as he lifts the box lid. "A joy buzzer? A can of fake snakes? A whoopie cushion?"

"No, no, you're gonna love it," she chokes out the answer between snorting laughs. 

He withdraws his birthday present from a cotton cushion. "Very nice." He admires the iPad. "Yes, I'm going to enjoy this a great deal." He's more puzzled that before. "Thank you, sweetheart."

She rushes from her end of the table to his and makes a seat for herself in his lap, and that's quite a nice present too, but he still doesn't—She presses the "on" button and her giggles start all over. "There, I've preloaded it with some—". She has to interrupt herself for a laughing fit. "Reading material. Here—". She points at an app and he presses it, opening the software. He's expecting classic literature, or maybe the Zane Greys he loves, but he doesn't recognize any of the titles or authors in the little book icons gracing his virtual bookshelf. He opens one of the stories, skims the introduction, then scowls, murmuring under his breath. He leaves that story for another, skims the first paragraph, deepens his scowl. Then a third: "Belle! I don't get it. All of these seem to be stories about Hook. I really don't wish to devote my bedtime reading to tales of the brave pirate's adventures."

"No, darling, that's not the point at all. These stories are going to make you laugh harder than those Bob Hope-Bing Crosby Road Pictures you love." She points. "Look at the tag."

"'Captain Floor'?" He's still befuddled. "All of these stories are marked 'Captain Floor.' Belle, what's a Captain Floor?"

"Let me read one to you." She snuggles into his chest. "'Wall was dark with jealousy. She plotted her revenge: she would wipe the floor with Floor if it was the last thing she ever did, and then her darling Hook would return to her. As she plotted, she eavesdropped on the illicit lovers: he, her handsome pirate, spread eagle upon the linoleum, his hand stroking her tiles, and she, with her faded floral print, an oh so innocent facade covering an overwaxed surface that many had walked upon. The hussy! Floor sold herself so cheaply to any who would have her. Did Hook not realize his Floor had given away her charms to every pair of boots that would have her? 'My enchantress, my goddess, let me take you away from all this,' Hook crooned as he slowly brought his burning lips to the cool linoleum.'"

Belle's narration is interrupted by a sound no human has heard before. Her husband isn't chuckling, as he sometimes does in public, nor laughing, as he rarely does, in her presence alone: he is howling with laughter. If Webster's Visual Dictionary ever needs a picture to illustrate the definition for 'ROFLMAO,' this would be it. Rumple laughs so hard she falls off his lap.

"More," he begs, wiping his eyes. And when she's finished that tribute to Captain Floor, he demands another, and when he is too hoarse to ask for a third, he asks for it with a croak. She reads him every Captain Floor she's downloaded. "Best birthday present ever," he gasps. 

"Better than the Lamborghini I gave you last year?"

"Better."

She kisses him. "I'm glad you liked it, dear. You needed a laugh, after the year we've had. Now, I'm going to prepare a nice pot of tea, and then we'll retire for the night, all right?"

"Thank you, Belle. It was a wonderful birthday." 

But as she slides off his lap, she detects a sudden gleam in his mysterious eyes. She knows that look: she even has a name for it: The Plotter's Gleam. She pats his cheek and goes off to make the tea as Rumple picks up a pen and legal pad.

\--------  
Hook saunters into Granny's for his morning Danish. At each table he passes, heads snap up, followed by snickers, giggles, guffaws and chortles. He frowns in mild puzzlement as he slides onto a red vinyl stool at the counter and waves Ruby over with the coffee pot. "Now don't you be getting ideas about our new wood laminate." Ruby bites her lip to keep from giggling as she bops his head with a menu.

"Huh? Ow! What was that for?"

"I saw the way you were eyeing the sidewalk as you strolled in. She's already taken, Captain, by the rose bush."

"What?" He spins around on the stool. "What are you people laughing at?" 

One by one, every customer in the diner holds up a slim book. Even the Merry Men have copies, and most of them can't read. The title, trimmed in gold leaf, doesn't clarify anything, but Hook has a hunch from the way everyone is grinning that he'd better not ask any more questions. He waves away the coffee and slides off the stool to head for the library, where he is certain his friend can supply him with answers.

"The Adventures of Captain Floor, or The Crocodile's Revenge by Rumplestiltskin," indeed.


End file.
